CHAPTER

V.

The trade and claim of the Dutch to New Netherland, whatever that claim might be, had already passed 1621. into the hands of one of the great trading companies so fashionable in that age. The expiration of the truce with Spain, and the consequent danger to which Dutch American commerce was exposed, had led to the incorporation of the Dutch West India Company, with exclusive privileges of trade and settlement on both coasts of America, embracing, also, the west coast of Africa, from the tropic of Cancer to the Cape of Good Hope-a monopoly not less comprehensive than that of the East India Company. Exclusively of the coasts of Europe and northern Africa, the rest of the world, so far as Dutch commerce was concerned, was shared between these two great companies. This wealthy association, able to combine military with commercial operations, was divided into five chambers or branches, established in five principal Dutch cities, its affairs being managed by a board of directors, called the Assembly of Nineteen, one of whom was appointed by the States-General, and the others by the five chambers, in the ratio of their respective wealth and importance.

Reprisals on Spanish commerce, the conquest of Brazil, the purchase of slaves on the African coast, and the establishment of settlements in the West Indies, chiefly engrossed the attention of this great commercial company. But New Netherland was not wholly overlooked; it was made a province, and committed to the especial charge of the Amsterdam chamber; and a vessel with 1623. emigrants was dispatched thither, under the command of Mey, whose experience, acquired in former voyages, was now availed of by the new proprietors.

Mey ascended South Bay, and built a fort on Delaware River, calid Nassau, the first European establish

V.

ment in that region. Up the Hudson, a few miles north CHAPTER of the former post, Fort Orange was built, on the present site of Albany. Among the emigrants carried out 1624. by Mey, about thirty families in all, was a small colony of Walloons, Protestant refugees from the Spanish Netherlands, who had previously sought, without success, permission from the English Virginia Company to settle in their territory, under magistrates of their own. The Dutch had hitherto visited New Netherland only as traders; the first colonists, properly so called, were these Walloons, who settled on the northwest corner of Long Island, at Wahle-Bocht, or "Walloons' Bay," now corrupted into Wallabout.

The supreme local authority of New Netherland, executive, legislative, and judicial, was vested in the director and his council. Next in rank was the SchoutFiscal, who combined, according to the Dutch usage, the duties of attorney general and sheriff. He sat in the council on certain occasions, and gave his opinion on questions of justice, finance, and police, but had no vote.

Mey was succeeded by Verhulst, who arrived with 1625 three ships, bringing out horses, cattle, sheep, and swine, with a number of new settlers. Next year, Peter Min- 1626 uet was appointed director. The Island of Manhattan, "rocky and full of trees," was purchased of the Indians for sixty gilders, about twenty-four dollars; and a blockhouse, surrounded by a palisade of cedars, was erected at its southern extremity, and called Fort Amsterdam. About this fort, the head-quarters of the colony, a little village slowly grew up-rudiment of the present metropolis of NEW YORK. Six farms were laid out on Manhattan Island; and specimens of the harvest were sent to Holland in proof of the fertility of the soil.

A friendly correspondence and intercourse of trade was 1627

CHAPTER presently opened with the English at New Plymouth, the V. same who had proposed to settle on the Hudson, and who 1627. still recollected with gratitude the kind entertainment

they had enjoyed for so many years in Holland. The Dutch, however, were not very well pleased at being repeatedly reminded by Governor Bradford of the English claim to the country they occupied, and still less did they relish his request to forbear trading with the Indians of Cape Cod and Narraganset Bay. The intimation that they were liable to be attacked by English vessels was construed into a threat, and the Dutch traders wrote home for soldiers. But danger on that score had been already obviated by an arrangement entered into with the King of England, securing to the ships of the Dutch West India Company the right to frequent all English ports, wheresoever situated.

Colonization could hardly be said to have yet been attempted by the Dutch; but a scheme for that purpose, drawn up by the Assembly of Nineteen, was at length 1629. approved and ratified by the States-General. Any memJune. ber of the company who might establish in any part of New Netherland, within four years after notice of his intention, a colony of fifty persons upward of fifteen years of age, was to be entitled, by the name of Patroon, to a grant of territory so occupied, sixteen miles in extent along the sea-shore, or the bank of some navigable river, or eight miles where both banks were occupied, with an indefinite extent inland. The Island of Manhattan and the fur trade with the Indians were expressly reserved to the company; and upon all trade carried on by the patroons, an acknowledgment of five per cent. was to be paid. These patroons were to extinguish the Indian title, and were to settle their lands with tenants, farmers having indented servants the same with those of Virginia;

V.

but the feudal privileges reserved to the patroons, some CHAPTER traces of which still exist, present a marked difference between this Dutch scheme of settlement and the free ten- 1629. ure of lands adopted in Virginia. Free settlers, who emigrated at their own expense, were to be allowed as much land as they could cultivate; and settlers of every description were to be free of taxes for ten years. The colonists were forbidden to make any woolen, linen, or cotton cloth, or to weave any other stuffs, on pain of being banished, and arbitrarily punished "as perjurers" —a regulation in the spirit of that colonial system adopted by all the nations of Europe, which sought to confine the colonists to the production of articles of export, and to keep them dependent on the mother country for the most necessary manufactures.

In anticipation of this scheme, some leading members of the company had already taken measures to secure to themselves the most accessible and inviting territories. Godyn and Bloemmaert had employed agents to purchase from the Indians a tract extending from Cape Henlopen June 1. thirty-two miles up the west shore of South or Delaware Bay. Not long after the same proprietors made a pur- 1631 chase, sixteen miles square, on the opposite shore, includ- May 5. ing Cape May. To these purchases they gave the name of Zwanendal, or Swansdale. Pauw, one of the direct- · ors of the West India Company, bought up the Indian 1630. title to the district named Hoboken, to which Staten July 2 Island and other neighboring tracts were presently added. Aug. 16 This region was called Pavonia. Van Rensselaer's agents had already purchased the lands above and below April 18 Fort Orange. This purchase, called Rensselaerswyck, including additions afterward obtained, was twenty-four July 28 miles long and forty-eight broad, embracing the present counties of Albany and Rensselaer, with a part of Co

CHAPTER lumbia.

For the settlement of Zwanendal and Rens

V. selaerswyck companies were formed by the patroons, into 1630. which other parties were admitted.

Dec. A little colony of thirty persons, sent to Zwanendal, was established at Hoarkill, just within Cape Henlopen, the present site of Lewistown. A small colony was March. also sent to Rensselaerswyck, and some settlers to Pavonia.

The patroons, however, did little more than was absolutely necessary to secure their grants. They were chiefly anxious for the fur trade with the Indians, in which, notwithstanding an express provision to the contrary, they claimed a right to participate, at least in those districts where the company had no trading posts. This claim occasioned a warm dispute; and Minuet, the director, accused of favoring the pretensions of the patroons, was 1632. recalled. The ship in which he returned with a cargo of furs, after entering the English Channel, was forced March. by stress of weather to put into the harbor of Plymouth, and was seized there, by procurement of Gorges and others, as an interloping trader. This seizure led to a new, correspondence between the Dutch and English governments as to the Dutch title to New Netherland. At length the ship was released, but the English still insisted on their claim to the territory.

Sailing for the Delaware on a whaling expedition, and with supplies, also, for Zwanendal, De Vries, as he approached, caused a signal gun to be fired; but there was Dec. 6. no answer. What a scene met his eyes when he landed' The palisades were burned, the block-house destroyed, and human bones lay scattered around. Some quarrel had arisen with the neighboring Indians, who had surprised and destroyed the colony. De Vries proceeded up the bay in search of provisions; but Fort Nassau had